Requirefix

What's Requirefix?

Requirefix is a lightweight extension for Node.js's require() function. This extension allows you to load a module with its automatically postfixed name.

The Problem

If you're using js-to-js transpilers or pre-processors like Babel or Traceur for your Node.js source code, you'll early face the problem you have two versions of the same file: an original and a compiled with different names. server.js and server-compiled.js for example. It not seems like a good design decision to insert -compiled into the module names in your require() calls.

The Solution

Requirefix extends Node's built-in require() function with an extra behaviour. You can specify one or more prefix and postfix for the module paths you try to require. This way you can simply include modules without worrying about the pre-processed and original file version names.

Usage

Add it to your application's main module to override module.require() globally:

require('requirefix').postfix = '-compiled' // override module.require() and set the desired postfix in one line

// here we're using requirefix() instead of the original module.require()
// try to load './myCompiledModule-compiled.js' and './myCompiledModule.js'
var myCompiledModule = require('./myCompiledModule')

If you don't want to override module.require() globally, but you want to use it as a drop in replacement, that's not a problem:

var rfx = require('requirefix')

rfx.dropIn  = true // tell requirefix to restore global.require() and module.require() to the original, built-in require() function 
rfx.postfix = '-compiled' // set the desired postfix

require = rfx.bind(module) // override module.require() only for this module

// here we're using requirefix() instead of the original module.require()
// try to load './myCompiledModule-compiled.js' and './myCompiledModule.js'
var myCompiledModule = require('./myCompiledModule')

You can specify multiple postfixes at the same time:

require('requirefix').postfix = [ '-compiled', '.min' ]

// try to load './myCompiledModule-compiled.js', './myCompiledModule.min.js' and './myCompiledModule.js'
var myCompiledModule = require('./myCompiledModule') 

Prefixes are also supported:

var rfx = require('requirefix')

rfx.prefix  = '_' // auto-prefix with an underscore, because we mark private modules with it, for example
//rfx.prefix = [ '_', '__' ] // multiple prefixes are also supported
rfx.postfix = '-compiled'
//rfx.postfix = [ '-compiled', '.min' ] // or even multiple pre- and post fixes at the same time
 
// try to load:
// * './lib/_myCompiledModule-compiled'
// * './lib/_myCompiledModule'
// * './lib/myCompiledModule-compiled'
// * './lib/myCompiledModule'
var myCompiledModule = require('./lib/myCompiledModule')

For more information see the examples.

Installation

With npm:

npm install --save requirefix

With git:

git clone git://github.com/schwarzkopfb/requirefix.git
cd requirefix
npm test

Will Requrefix break my dependencies?

Requrefix leaves native and locally installed modules alone. If you use Requrefix to load one of Node's built-in modules or a package from the node_modules folder, Requirefix won't mess with it.

Performance

Requirefix adds minimal and hardly measurable overhead to the module-loading process.

License

MIT license.